Sydney - A racist message scrawled in blood has been found in the home of a Filipino family murdered inside their Sydney home, Australian media reported on Thursday.
Citing police sources, local newspapers said the undisclosed message had been written with the blood of Philippines-born lawyer Teddy Gonzales, 46, his wife Mary-Josephine Loiva, 43, and their 18-year-old daughter, Claudine.
The family, who lived in the leafy middle class suburb of North Ryde, were stabbed to death in a ferocious attack described by police as an "outrage".
"Obviously any murder is a tragedy, but in this particular case it's an outrage," one of the most experienced homicide investigators in the New South Wales police force, Superintendent Mick Plotecki, told reporters.
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'We are all so shocked' The bodies were discovered by the 20-year-old son of the Gonzales', Sef, a law student, when he returned home in the early hours of Wednesday after a night out with friends.
Detectives said they had commissioned a task force, codenamed Strike Force Tawas, to track down the killers.
Police believe the family moved to Australia from the Philippines' capital, Manila, in the early 1990s.
The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said Teddy Gonzales was found stabbed to death in a hallway while his wife's throat had been cut. Both victims had also been stabbed repeatedly.
Their daughter, a final-year high student at a prestigeous Catholic private school, was found in an upstairs bedroom with her throat cut.
Detectives described the house as having been ransacked.
Father Kevin Dadswell said the family were regular parishioners in the Sydney suburb of Blacktown's St Michael's Catholic Church.
"They were a very devout family," the priest told the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
"We have a mass at 8.30am every morning and Mr Gonzales would come about three or four times a week on his way to work."
Neighbours and friends described the attack as evil.
"We are all so shocked. Why would anyone want to do such a horrible thing to such nice people?" family friend Irene David said.
Investigators are remaining tight-lipped about a possible motive for the slayings, and have declined to reveal the wording of the message left in the living room of the family's two-storey home. - Sapa-AFP
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